Hypericum leschenaultii Choisy

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Hypericum leschenaultii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/hypericum/hypericum-leschenaultii/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

Synonyms

  • H. triflorum Bl.

Glossary

ovary
Lowest part of the carpel containing the ovules; later developing into the fruit.
acuminate
Narrowing gradually to a point.
acute
Sharply pointed.
apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
glaucous
Grey-blue often from superficial layer of wax (bloom).
lax
Loose or open.
oblanceolate
Inversely lanceolate; broadest towards apex.
ovary
Lowest part of the carpel containing the ovules; later developing into the fruit.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
section
(sect.) Subdivision of a genus.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Hypericum leschenaultii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/hypericum/hypericum-leschenaultii/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

A shrub, evergreen in mild climates, lax in growth, ordinarily 4 to 8 ft high; branches slender, reddish brown. Leaves more or less shortly stalked, ovate-oblong, bluntish at the end, rounded at the base, 112 to 212 in. long, 34 to 112 in. wide, dark, slightly glaucous green above, more definitely glaucous and thickly sprinkled with translucent dots beneath. Flowers rich yellow, 212 to 3 in. wide, produced singly or in threes (sometimes in sevens) at the end of the shoot. Petals 1 in. wide, rather concave, roundish obovate, slightly overlapping. Sepals 38 to 58 in. long, narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, acute at the apex. Stamens less than half as long as the petals, very numerous, arranged in five bundles. Ovary conical, tapering upward to the five recurved styles, which are half as long as the ovary, or even shorter. Bot. Mag., t. 9160.

Native of Java and other parts of Malaysia; discovered on the Javan mountains by Leschenault about 1805. The date of its introduction is not definitely known, but it was flowering in Mr Riall’s garden at Old Conna Hill, Co. Wicklow, Eire, in July 1882. It is, in combined size and richness of colouring, the finest flowered of all hypericum species. It is not quite hardy at Kew, where it has been grown in a practically unheated house, making shoots half to fully a yard long in a season, attaining a height of 12 ft or more and flowering during the summer and autumn months. In the milder parts it is hardy in the open ground, but even there it is better on a wall, owing to its rather lank habit.

It belongs to the same group as H. patulum (section Ascyreia) and is quite closely allied to H. hookeranum, which it resembles in its short stamens and styles, but is distinguished by its ‘very variable but always herbaceous and spreading calyces with their acute or acuminate, often unequal sepals and the rather large, long-tapering, conical capsules’ (Stapf in Bot. Mag., loc. cit.).

At the present time (1971) some plants grown as H. leschenaultii are really H. augustinii (q.v.).

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

Some plants grown under this name are H. addingtonii, for which see this supplement.